Birth From Not So Rose-Colored Glasses
Kyla Laing
I step hesitantly into the darkened delivery room and waver towards the back, uncertain of where I belong in this important moment of a stranger’s life that I’ve somehow found myself a part of. The room is surprisingly still and quiet. I look at the laboring mom laying on her back in the hospital bed in front of me. I don’t know who she is or what her journey has been up until this point, but I’m grateful that she has allowed me to be here.
I’m a student volunteer at the hospital and I’m in my first rotation on the labor and delivery floor. I’ve been on this floor for a month now, anxiously awaiting the opportunity to witness a birth for the first time. And now it’s happening right before my eyes. The obstetrician hurriedly enters the room, his towering frame commanding the attention of all the staff and triggering them to spring into action. I watch the nurses help wrap the surgical gown around him and hand him his gloves. The OB tech pulls down a panel in the ceiling and a massive light appears out of thin air, pointing down on the laboring mom in bed. The glint of the shiny surgical tools on the table set up next to the mom’s bed catches my eye as the light reflects off of them. The tools look sharp and conniving to me, lined up neatly and perfectly on a bright blue surgical drape. I realize I am struck by how medicalized the whole birth process is. It feels foolish to even think that, as a supposed aspiring physician myself. But there’s something unsettling about the way the mom in front of me feels reduced to a singular organ that needs a surgery performed on it. It feels like the attention in the room is directed at the hands of the obstetrician, as if he holds the power, when in reality it is the woman lying in bed who is doing the magical work of bringing a life into this world.
The actual delivery feels like it happens almost instantaneously. One minute mom is pushing, the next the baby’s head is out, and then the rest of the tiny body seems to glide out all at once. After the baby is out and crying gleefully on mom’s chest, the obstetrician gets ready to work – tools in hand. But first, he asks mom if she would like some pain medication before he begins to sew up her first degree tear. Upon what I thought was mom’s affirmation, one of the nurses rushes out of the room to fetch the lidocaine for mom. However, before the nurse can return, the obstetrician begins sewing mom up. The OB tech is standing next to me at this point, and she whispers in my ear, “right now he’s sewing her up without any pain medication, so she only has the residual numbness of pushing out the baby to help her.” I look at the face of the OB tech and every other woman in the room, wincing in empathy at the sight of the mother. I feel confused by what I am observing. Did mom not want the pain medication? Did she not care? Maybe I heard her incorrectly? What do I know anyways, as a lowly intern with no skills or prior experience?
As I walked out of the hospital that night, I didn’t feel the way I thought I might after witnessing my first birth. I had seen the comments in our group forum left by other interns on the floor who had seen births before I did. Their comments always included some rendition of “it was SO beautiful and emotional and magical.” But that didn’t quite resonate with me. I think I had an image in mind of a more romanticized and dramatic version of birth, that the reality hadn’t lived up to. I didn’t picture a quiet room at midnight with a tired obstetrician trudging in, and a confusing aftermath without clear consent regarding the mother’s wishes. I recalled how prior to the mother’s delivery that night, the nurses were talking amongst themselves about how they felt the obstetrician was “in a rush” and trying to hurry the labor along, which they felt wasn’t what was best for mom or baby. In the end, the outcome was a healthy mom and baby. So the birth was a success. But still, I walked to my car that night with complex feelings and questions in mind of how maybe the hospital birth experience could be different. Could it be more empowering for the mother? Could there be less focus on and power placed in the hands of the obstetrician? Could it be less medicalized in a way that was still prioritizing the health and safety of mom and baby? Could it be better?
Kyla Laing is a recent college graduate with a B.S. in Human Biology and is an aspiring physician. She takes a special interest in the field of Obstetrics and Gynecology and hopes to one day contribute to the improvement of this field and empowerment of women in a meaningful way. In her essay, Kyla explores the complex thoughts and feelings she experienced during the first birth she observed.
